Invidia: Judgment
by Rieka De-Volka
Summary: Second in the Invidia Series. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death. EnvyLust


**Title:** Judgment.  
**Fandom:** Fullmetal Alchemist.  
**Characters:** Mostly Envy-Centric.  
**Series:** Invidia.  
**Chronological Order:** Second.  
**Spoilers:** For all the anime, this particular piece takes place before and through the first episodes of he anime series.  
**Beta: **DramaQueen, Dynast and Althea Astera Renata.  
**Rating:** R, for violence, swearing and sexual situations.  
**Genre:** Drama, Angst, Romance.  
**Pairings: **Envy/Lust.  
**Feedback:** Please! If you spot typos, grammar, continuity (but bear in mind this is an AU fic), do tell me. I tend to write late at night and although my beta's are skilled, they can't always catch all my slips.  
**Quote:** "Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is as sure as life, it is as sure as death." Thomas Carlyle.  
**Word Count:** /- 5 700.  
**Notes:** A small interlude, between "Sinner" and "Penitence". Originally, I didn't want to _write_ this part, not so much because of the pairing (which is not the 'rare pairing' from the challenge, but a secret sinful pleasure of mine), but because I had wanted to leave it floating around, just hint at it in "Penitence". However, after writing for six hours straight, I went back, read it and cringed so hard I realized it would fuck up the story horribly to add flashbacks like that. So, here's hoping you like it. As DramaQueen dubbed this, _"So, **that**'s why Envy started war with Dante." _

* * *

**Invidia: Judgment.**

_"Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death." _

* * *

The short haired Homunculus let out a shaky breath as she shuddered. Envy grinned maliciously.

"You seem tired," The shape shifter grinned mockingly, "Should I stop now?"

"Fuck you!"

Arching an eyebrow, the elder Sin sat back on a boulder, watching with amusement as Pride slowly picked herself from the floor. Her hair, light brown in color and spiked up in a rather un-lady-like manner, was decorated with dirt and dry leaves after the beating she had just taken. The oroborus in her forehead gave her inhuman nature right away, one of the main reasons Dante had requested him to get rid of her.

By request, it should be understood she demanded her head.

_…If your task is to harm, then harm smartly…_

Envy had something else in mind.

"Stop playing, goddamnit!" Rising slowly, the younger Homunculus snarled, panic hiding under an unhealthy amount of anger, "I'm not a fucking toy!"

"No, you're rather dead for that," Grinning viciously, Envy snorted and waved a hand, dismissing her words all too casually, "Dante wants you dead, destroyed, finished and et all."

"So I gather," The Ultimate Illusionist crossed her arms over her chest, glaring.

Pride knew she was going to die. No one survived Envy, no one _defeated_ Envy, but damn it if she wouldn't fight teeth and claws for her life – unlife, existence, _whatever_ – pathetic as it was. She was rather plain for a woman of her age, Envy mused with another wicked smirk, plain and easily ignored in a crowd. Dante didn't appreciate her, her talents or her power, but he did. He had an itching that wouldn't go away and a plan began to form in his mind. _She'll do_, he thought with amusement, noting the man clothes, the rather unflattering shirt and the oversized pants. _She'll do nicely. _

"And if I gave you a chance to save your hide?" Pride tensed, not liking the ill humored smile, not at all, "That is, if you're willing to hide away from the rest of the world."

"Gee, never knew you cared," The dry reply only got her another snort, another dismissing wave of hand.

"I don't," Envy's eyes glinted strangely as he stood up gracefully, "I can feed from you, or I can send you away to guard something. Either way, I win."

The casual wording made the young Homunculus tense. Envy merely looked at her with a calculative glint in his eyes, the same one he had worn when he fed her, right after she was created. She could remember the dark amusement lingering in his eyes as she swallowed the stones in a frenetic need to _be_.

"What do I do?"

Envy smiled.

* * *

"You're not her."

Lust faltered. Her hand pulled back faster than the eye could see, and her face was shadowed. Placing both of her hands against the mark on her chest, she looked away.

"I wanted… I…" Inhuman eyes fixed on the red ones, and the Sin bit her lip, "I shouldn't be here."

The Ishbalan watched as a the strange woman slid away into the night, finally disappearing in a brush of moonlight. The young boy held himself tightly, trying to chase away the chill of early morning and the ghostly apparition before him. The eyes had not been the reddish pink that held laughter and mischievousness before, but an unholy purple that spoke of death. Her skin had been pale, sickly so, filled with such an ill tone that made his stomach wrench.

"Oh brother, what have you done?" The soft voice broke the silence as the first rays of dawn appeared in the distance, coloring the sand, the sky and everything the eye could see into an unearthly golden hue.

Closing his eyes against the light, the Ishbalan boy shivered and sent a prayer to reach those he loved the most, to protect them from the Evil that lurked their lands.

* * *

In the manor, Envy had one of the best rooms. It was a well known fact he was the favorite, the one Dante indulged often for no other reason than he had never failed her. Her prized murderer, the Ultimate Actor. His room was on the last floor, facing the East, though everyone considered the whole floor to be his. No one wanted to share with him, to be vulnerable to his wrath and his short temper; his decidedly wicked glares that promised pain and retribution when one tested the boundaries of his limited patience. His room was wide and with a certain airy quality, with few decorations that only inspired the feeling of caged freedom and the paradox that was its inhabitant. No one dared to enter the room without a very good reason – Dante's orders or per request – especially after Envy made it perfectly clear he would _rip them to shreds_ if they did.

There was, however, one exception to the rule and it happened to be the newest Lust.

She amused him; that was the most accepted explanation to the eldest's interest in the dark haired woman. She amused him, thus he tolerated her presence more than he did theirs. Envy was solitary by nature, but unlike Pride, who delighted himself in being as far away from the rest of the world as he could, the green haired Homunculus would generally spend hours in silence, thinking and remembering things not even Dante was privy to, watching over the youngest and those who were required to remain at the manor. Wrath and Sloth, specially, since the two pranksters were generally hard to keep under control. Greed too, was a headache for the shape shifter, taunting and probing and forcing him into childish fights.

It was precisely after one of those bothersome encounters that the green haired Homunculus found himself growling against his pillow, trying to put a lid on his bloodlust and the urgency to rip Greed into ribbons and make garlands out of them. After a moment, or an hour, of biting the fluffy thing – and having torn it at some point – he sighed and turned to glare at the ceiling.

He was bored.

He needed to do _something_. Killing Greed was high on the list of things he would be delighted to do, but he was not stupid enough to provoke his Master over that silly good for nothing bastard. No, he needed to find something he could destroy, that he could… _enjoy_ before he went insane.

Insanity, Envy had found, was vastly overrated. He had been driven to it a few times in the past, and it always left a sour taste in his mouth afterwards. Boredom was slightly better than the gaping nonsense and lack of _being_ that came with insanity. He was not human, he was only body and mind, and if the mind was missing, the body became weak, vulnerable.

Envy despised weakness above anything else.

_…Mercy makes you weak…_

From somewhere in the house, a loud explosion echoed, making the walls rattle. The shape shifter closed his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them and stalked out of his room, snarling.

"Fucking _shits!_" He howled venomously as he came down the stairs, stomping his feet hard enough to make the ancient wood creak.

The war cry had the desired effect as the two elusive Homunculi appeared shyly. Wrath hid behind Sloth, as per usual, his eyes wide as he swallowed hard. His hair – ridiculously _unnatural_ red hair – was covered in ashes and dust and something sticky and green, which Envy had no desire of touching. Sloth, for his part, shrunk his shoulders, peering at him from under long black lashes and smiled nervously. His dark blue hair was mussed, the short spikes similarly covered in debris.

They had enough sense to look rueful.

"What, exactly," They shivered as the older Sin spoke in a soft, velvety voice, his eyes glowing with murder, "Do you think you were doing?"

"Wrath said-"

"The lake-"

"To stop the flood-"

"Then Sloth changed it-"

"And Wrath screamed like a girl-"

"I did not! It's your fault the wall broke-"

"Did I set it on fire?"

Watching the bickering without interest, Envy rolled his eyes, looked at the ceiling and hoped someone out in the world would fucking _hurry up_ making new Homunculi to replace the absolute failures he had been landed with. They were powerful, he was willing to admit that, Wrath, the Ultimate Flame and Sloth, the Ultimate Trap, but they were still children at mind, and it was grinding his patience – not that he had much to begin with – to dust.

"Fucking shut up!" Snapping menacingly, Envy had a second of satisfaction as he watched the young Homunculi scramble away from him, breath hitching in panic, "I don't give a rat's ass about what happened or who started it! Go fix the fucking wall or you'll explain to Master what happened!" Seeing them hesitate when they nodded, he bared his teeth, changing them into long fangs in a second, "_Now!_"

Smiling nastily as both paled beyond white and straight into transparent, the shape shifter huffed in irritation. He watched them hurry down the corridor, as far away from him as they could. He took a moment to notice their feeble attempts to emulate Greed's clothing and snorted again, before retiring to his room again.

He was tempted to try and get drunk again, if only to break the tedious routine.

* * *

Lust entered the manor with long strides. She looked determined when she strolled towards the glorious staircase and her heels clicked on the marble floors. The little runts, as she fondly called Wrath and Sloth, were bickering over the remains of the northern wall of the second floor and stopped their petty fight for a moment to look at her. Lust ignored them, continuing her trail up to the fourth floor, to Envy's Lair.

"Shouldn't we warn her?" Sloth asked after a moment, blowing a strand of hair off his face, blinking, "Envy was mighty pissed off."

"Bah," Wrath was still sulking about the whole situation, and he kicked a bit of the fallen wall with a snort, "Better her than us, bro, better her than us."

Lust heard them, distantly, but paid them no heed. She needed… she wanted… she didn't know. But Envy would know, because Envy _always_ knew. He was the oldest and wisest and he never lied to them. He was cruel and vicious and rude, but he always told them the truth.

And after that painful confrontation with the past, a past so twisted and misunderstood she could barely recognize it, she needed the truth. Opening the door with trembling fingers, the long haired Homunculus slid inside, closing it behind her as she took a sharp breath.

"What the fuck do you-" Whirling around from where he was glaring down from the window, Envy turned with narrowed eyes, but stopped mid-sentence to take in the despairing image before him, "Lust?"

There was a broken sob, and then she flung herself at him. Envy blinked, feeling the taller woman curled around him, _clawing_ at him. She wasn't crying, simply because she didn't know how to, but her body trembled as her breathing hitched erratically. Staring down at her, amused, he eased himself back on his bed, feeling the mattress sink as she fell with him, tightly clutching his back.

"What on earth are you doing?" He asked after a while, when she was no longer sobbing dryly, just burying her face against his chest, "Lust?"

"Tell me," Looking up at him, her eyes seemed almost, _almost_ human, "Tell me what we are. _Who_ are we?"

Envy stared at her, frowning. Lust had never had an existential crisis, few of them ever did, actually. Their… _inexistence_ was something that became trivial under the weight of their power and the bloodlust that went along with it. Some of them were too silly, too childish when they had been created, to worry about what they felt. Like Gluttony, the second oldest, the source of their power… the spineless idiot that trailed after Lust and found shelter in her pretty words and sophisticated mannerisms. Like the brats he had just yelled at, the twins that had been revived by a disturbed and grief mad-father at the price of his own life.

Others, like Greed – who only wanted power and glory, who never had just _enough_ – or like Pride – who went around plotting and planning and wanted nothing more than to please their Master – preferred to ignore their situation, the contradiction and the doubts in favor of enjoying the power and immortality.

There had never been someone quite like himself, who sheltered in Hatred, never wanting to look at the mirror and _see_ the monster.

_…Either victory or death, nothing else matters…_

"Sins," He replied after a long moment, not remembering when his hand had begun to run over the silky hair, when hers had started to trace patterns against his chest, "We're sins."

* * *

They feared him. They were _terrified_.

Envy took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sweet scent of anxiety and a healthy dose of despair. He had forced them to watch, he had _smiled_ while they watched. He felt a shiver of delight as Greed's screech echoed in the suddenly stilled room, he felt the need to moan out loud as the obnoxious voice died out slowly, painfully so, leaving an echo that lasted even in the tense silence.

_…To fight is to kill…_

"When I say stop," Envy purred, looking at his audience with a predatorial glint in his eyes, "I _mean_ stop," He flashed them all with a snarl that spoke of something far more… _unpleasant_ than being sealed away, "Or _else._"

He stormed out of the building, transforming as he did so into a random soldier and leaving no trace behind him. If he had looked behind him, he would have seen them there, staring in awed horror, unable to pry their eyes away from Greed's prision, but he didn't. For some reason, he couldn't take Lust's terrified stare off his mind.

He convinced himself he didn't care.

* * *

"Sloth displeases me," Envy looked up from where he was reading, arching an eyebrow almost curiously. Dante turned a page from her book, "Dispose of him, he's… inappropriate."

"Wrath might revolt, if you remove his twin," Frowning, Envy watched with ill amusement as Dante smiled, "But then, perhaps you wish me to replace them both."

"No," The air in the room chilled, "Only Sloth. I wish Wrath to suffer. It doesn't matter if you can't replace him yet, remove him from my presence."

Envy nodded, face a carefully carved mask of detachment. Words he had heard centuries prior ringed through his mind, curling and twisting and making him uncomfortable.

_…Foul entertainment, cruelty is only befitting of monsters…_

But those words had been told to a boy, a human boy who was learning how to kill, and he was neither young, nor human anymore. Snorting, he closed the book, his mood soured, and left the room without a word.

Envy had the feeling his meal was going to turn rather bitter.

* * *

It turned out to be tricky. Not because Sloth was particularly strong or smart – at least not compared to _him_ – but because he had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him jumpy. Envy commited two mistakes that could have given the game away, had Sloth been paying more attention, but they apparently weren't enough to break the illusion.

"Heh, remember that?" The blue haired Homunculus pointed to a clearing in the forest, where everything had been burnt so thoroughly the ground was still black and nothing grew on it.

"Yeah," Envy shrugged uncomfortably, not so much for Sloth's relaxed stance, but for the arm wrapped around his own, tugging him around.

He continued to dodge the persistent chatter, answering with monosyllables and distracting Sloth with vague replies. When he deemed them far enough from the manor, he stopped abruptly. He had to make a clean kill, so that Wrath wouldn't come and ruin everything.

_…If your task is to kill, then kill cleanly…_

"Wrath?" Slitted purple eyes fixed on him almost worriedly, eyes much and _nothing_ like his own. Sloth frowned, "Brother, are you ill?"

Envy smiled, umpleasantly. He amused himself for a second, with the realization that not death, not even being ressurrected had been enough to sever the bond between the twins. He amused himself for a second, then he snarled. As he bared his teeth, his body reshaped itself, back to the familiar lanky limbs that were easy to move.

"You!"

Jumping off the floor, even before Sloth could start to turn it into one of his sticky traps, he landed to the side, spun on his heel and kicked the younger inhuman square in the chest, sending him flying away from him. As he walked over to the fallen Sin, he smiled. With a panicked cry, Sloth dissolved his own arms into a sickly green goo and shot it against him. Envy allowed him to 'trap' him, letting himself be dragged close to the ashen white Homunculus.

"It's not your fault," The shape shifter said softly, almost gently, his eyes glinting strangely. Leaning in towards the terrified Sloth, who was uselessly trying to crush him with his grip, Envy didn't seem to mind, or even feel it, "It's _him_ Master wants to suffer… She wants him to _regret_ it."

"No!" Whimpering pathetically, Sloth shook his head wildly, looking almost human in his despair.

"Tell me," Envy felt drunk with glee as the other screeched, feeling the fingers sinking through his altered anatomy and into _him_, burning from the inside out, "Was he even that good of a fuck?"

Sloth looked horrified, his contorted face burning into Envy's mind's eye, even as he disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a sick puddle of… well, _something._ Relishing in the kill, and still feeling light headed from the sudden rush of new power coursing through his veins, Envy laughed as he hadn't done in centuries.

He pretended not to see the shadow slithering away. He pretended he did not care she had seen him. That she knew.

A mocking voice within, sounding suspiciously like an old Xianese crone, told him he was a lousy liar.

* * *

His eyes snapped open as his hand was already flying, fingers curled into claws. Envy snarled when grabbed something, hair apparently, and there was a small moan as he clenched his fist on the slippery strands. Lust whimpered as she looked down at him, wincing as his grip on her hair tightened. Her hand was still pressing against him, cold and warm and tingling and suddenly… suddenly… it had been long.

Too damn _long_.

"You shouldn't be here," Envy hissed. He started to sit up, eyes darkening as he flexed his hand again, tightening his grip in warning.

Lust said nothing, moaning softly, her dark hair obscuring half of her face and then, then he _knew_.

_…Cruelty is only fit for those who await death with open arms…_

When she pressed her lips to his, he welcomed her. He pressed back and let his tongue out to taste _decay_, to taste the ashen softness of a willing mouth that left a bitter aftertaste of lies in his own. Envy made a strange purring noise in the back of his throat, then he bit her almost cruelly. She didn't recoil, didn't pull back. Her torn lip healed almost instantly, and if anything, it only made her press more insistently against him. He laughed in amusement as she tried to fit herself on his lap, gasped when she ground against him, whimpered when she bit him back.

"Finally taking upon your namesake, then?" He grinned into the kiss, and a terrible laugh passed through the lips firmly attached to his.

Envy stopped talking afterwards.

* * *

Lust was restless. She wandered around the manor, entertaining herself with nonsense. Studying the, for lack of better wording, heartbroken Wrath consumed a good deal of her time and the morbid knowledge, sharing the secret, made her giddy. It was a funny feeling, in the pit of her stomach, ghostly familiar as she roamed the manor, Gluttony trailing after her, entertaining her, helping her kill time while she waited.

Envy had left almost a month before, and things around the manor were tense and silent.

Greed was sealed away – the horrible screech and the terrible anger that Envy had unleashed was still fresh in their minds – and Pride was gone, had been gone for a long while, already deep in his plot with their Master. Sloth… well, Lust felt something cold and hot coiling inside her every time she thought about it, and wondered for the umpteenth time just _when_ was Envy going to drag his sorry ass back into the manor. Wrath was a miserable shadow of what he had been, going on about his orders in silence and no longer allowing things to burn around him if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Gluttony… Gluttony didn't count, because he only cared about eating and being around Lust.

And Lust… Lust was terribly bored and alone and full of, well, _lust_.

But Envy would be back soon and they could go back to being snarky to each other and not bored, not alone and certainly very lustful.

How long it could take him to find a man in a town so small as Rizembul anyway?

Lust wanted to fuck Envy, but since she couldn't, she decided to settle with second best.

Killing something.

* * *

"You're jealous."

Lust gave out a small cry as she closed the book, whirling around to glare at the intruder in her room. When her eyes settled on the smirking Envy, she snarled. His smirk only widened as she did, and ignoring her scowl, he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Standing swiftly, the taller woman stalked towards the window, stubbornly fixing her eyes outside, "That's _your_ Sin, not mine," She added snidely after a moment.

Envy laughed harshly, then pressed tightly against her, forcing her to lean against the glass. Lust hissed as her skin tingled where it touched the cold surface and felt a ting of arousal at the forceful caress.

"Be that way then, if you steal my Sin," Envy breathed on her ear, voice laughing mockingly at her as he grounded against her, "Then maybe I should steal yours."

Lust freed one of her arms out of his grasp and tried to hit him, but he merely moved out of the way and grinned. The same goddamn grin he had been wearing when he came back from killing Wrath, amused and bitter. The same goddamn grin he had been wearing when he came back from Rizembul, a demure Sloth on his heels. Lust snarled at the memory, allowing her nails to grow threateningly.

"You _are_ jealous," Envy snickered, even as she sank her dreadful claws on him, piercing skin and muscle with a startling ease. Instead of recoiling from the flare of pain, he moaned.

_…Do not taint its honor with pointless emotion… _

"Shut _up_."

He was laughing when she pressed her lips to his, not a single trace of tenderness in the gesture, her tongue pressing demandingly on his. He gasped when she twisted her hands, her nails still deep in his skin and buried his hands on her hair. Fisting them, he snarled as he pulled her head back slightly, eyes glinting wickedly.

"You're so _lovely_, all murderously violent like that," Envy hissed the words against her lips, seeing her neck straining, "But jealousy is for humans Lust," He slid one of his hands down her back, fingers trailing on her skin almost gently, "And that," Suddenly, she arched with a screech as she felt the clawed fingers sinking into her back, "We are _not._"

She twisted uncomfortably as he tightened his grip on her, agony coursing through her nerves as she pressed against him to try and escape the pain. When he let her go, she stumbled backwards, letting her weight rest against the windowsill.

"Then what _are_ we?" Lust's voice was a breathy whisper as she panted, from exhaustion and pain and _wanting_, dark eyes narrowed as she looked up at him, feeling the wounds throbbing even if they were healed already.

"Flesh and memories, dear, flesh and memories," His right hand tilted her face up when he pulled her towards him again, "Body and Mind and no Soul, that's the way things are supposed to be."

She wanted to scream, to wipe the smirk off his face, to _kill him_. Instead, she let out a groan and allowed herself be dragged down the spiral of deception that came with sex. Mindless, pointless sex.

Lust felt the need to cry, but since she couldn't, she laughed.

* * *

Envy didn't like Lior.

He couldn't really say _why_, but he didn't like the city. Maybe it was the climate, or the structure, or its people… or the fact it had that dooming feeling around it, like Xerxes had had once.

But that didn't matter, because Xerxes was gone, and anyone who remembered or _cared_ about it was gone too.

Envy grinned.

_…You exist only when you are moving, when your body becomes a weapon and your whole existence a goal…_

Admittedly, his target was rather easy to spot and the chase had been rather dull, but something had been bothering him. He had a pretty good idea of what it was. His last encounters with Lust had been strained. Admittedly, they had been _good_, but then again, in his long existence, he had yet to be proven there was such a thing as _'bad'_ sex. But after the little episode when he had collected Sloth…

"Monster!"

Dodging the hit as the pitiful human struggled to keep fighting, Envy sighed irritably. He watched without amusement as the man dragged himself upwards, wounded pride shining in his eyes. His left arm was broken and there was a nasty gash on his side. Envy scowled, he was getting sloppy.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," The Homunculus gabbed the man by the throat, raising him over a foot off the ground with ease and _squeezed_, watching the man writhe helplessly in his grasp, "Die already!"

Envy smiled sadistically as he threw the man against the wall, discarding him like a rag doll. The sick crack of bone snapping and flesh smashing made him feel marginally better.

"Cain!" Came the infernal shriek from the mouth of the alley.

Envy looked up from his work, wide eyed.

"Shit."

The woman was standing there, watching him through wide eyes and trembling like a leaf. Envy snarled menacingly, then froze when her features became clear. The skin was too dark, the eyes to wide, the nose a bit too crooked and the front bangs were out of place, but it was _her_. Staring at him in a mix of horror and defiance, like _she_ had done, all those years, _lifetimes_ ago.

"_Xi Feng_," Envy didn't realize he had breathed the words until he saw the woman give a tentative step back.

He flexed his clawed hands, steeling his nerves. Never mind who she looked like, he had a job to do.

For Dante.

Because he had to.

Letting out a horrible growl that no human throat would ever be able to produce, the Sin leaped away in frustration.

* * *

Lust hated feeling like she was the second choice. She was selfish and it was her nature to demand attention. Envy grinned every time he saw her sulk around because Dante sent him away.

She got rather feisty when he came back, too.

"Monster!" Smoothly avoiding getting his head cut off, the Sin snarled as he glared at the nosy farmer.

Annoyed, he realized it was not the time to be thinking about Lust and her stupid issues with their… _whatever_ that they had. He was supposed to be killing the idiots villagers to start a dispute with Lior.

Right.

_…Always think of your opponents and yourself as if you were already dead, so when the moment comes, you will not feel troubled…_

Except he was a bit lacking in the killing part. Not that he wasn't trying, because he was… but he found, to his own horror, that killing was turning rather monotonous. He'd been doing a good deal of it ever since Ishbal.

Ishbal had been where Lust came from.

_Concentrate!_ Growling, Envy finally decided to get the goddamn massacre done and over with. He broke a few necks, impaled some idiots and literally ripped the head off another terrified man, before deciding it was probably what Dante wanted.

_Probably_.

Glancing around the bloodstained streets, he cringed a bit. So _maybe_ he had overdone it a bit. And _maybe_ Dante had expressly demanded subtlety.

"Aw, _fuck it_."

* * *

Envy locked himself up for a week. He didn't eat, he didn't speak and only the sounds of pacing and the occasional curses could be heard from behind his door.

Envy had had an epiphany.

Not that anyone but himself would ever be privy to it, but it was _brilliant_. Body and Mind and no Soul… A Homunculus. But then… old gears and forgotten ideas began to grow, to mix and twist and become something else entirely, leaving him in with frantic need to write down, to give it _form_.

He wrote and wrote and wrote until the ink was gone, and then he wrote with blood, because he couldn't stop and it didn't matter anyway, he would never run out of blood. The arrays and the formulas shaped up into a monstrosity, a potential disaster larger than himself, written in blood to shed more blood. It left him mindless.

Mind and Soul and no Body. Spirits trapped and sealed away, anchored pseudo-immortals. Knowledge preserved through time and war. Power withheld in the fuzzy memories of inexistence.

_…The purpose of the Fight is to destroy the enemy…_

Body and Soul and no Mind. But that, _that_ was the key. To create the perfect components, to dissolve them away into its purest form, to maintain them pure enough for the Gate to deem them worthy.

Envy grinned. It made no sense at all and it was _perfect_, some sort of enlightenment that could grant Dante what she desired the most.

And because of that… he would destroy it as soon as it was complete.

* * *

"You failed."

Envy cringed as Dante took a sip of her wine, her voice strangely disappointed, yet smug. She looked at him critically, her lips twisting into a mocking smirk.

"You failed, _again_," The ancient looking woman stood up, walking towards the desk in the far corner of the room. Envy tensed as she sighed irritably, "I seem to know why, too. Do you recognize this?"

Envy paled as the battered diary was thrown in his general direction. _She couldn't…_ He licked his lips. He hadn't finished that theory yet, with the Lab 5 business and all that, he had almost forgotten about it.

_Oh **shit**._

If Dante had the diary, it was because she had been reading it. And if she had…

"It seems you have been too distracted lately," The old woman smiled condescendingly, "It's my fault too, I've been far too lenient with you."

Envy tensed as Dante narrowed her eyes, her hands clasping together, then pulling back to reveal a rather nasty looking ball of dark blue light.

"Your… _affair_ with Lust will end," Her eyes narrowed dangerously, the Alchemic energy in her hands glowing menacingly, "It has been enough Envy, choose. Either you or her. I only need one skilled assassin for this particular plot to work."

Envy stared at her, eyes widening. Oh sure, Dante was an evil bitch, he knew that, and he had been ordered to kill – _and consume_ – his fellow Homunculi before… but he had never quite liked any of them. Lust was… she was different. He _liked_ her, liked talking to her, liked fighting with her, liked _fucking_ her. Lust was the closest thing to a friend he had had in a very long while.

He didn't want to get rid of her. She was _his_.

_…Emotion makes you weak…_

"Well?" Dante arched an eyebrow sardonically, the light between her hands making her face look eerily haunting.

Envy hardened his face into a bored expression, and waved a hand dismissingly.

"What makes you think I give a rat's ass about her?"

* * *

He watched impassively as Dante played her part like a pro. She scolded both Lust and Sloth on their sloppy work at killing off that Hughes man, at having forced _him_ to intervene… despite the fact it had been _his_ job to kill the man in the first place. But Sloth was soon ignored, though, in favor of giving Lust a harsh tongue lashing. She stood through it almost stoic, for which Envy felt something, that a human would called guilt, twisting his insides uncomfortably.

"You are weak Lust," Dante narrowed her eyes dangerously, clasping her hands together and gathering the fearsome blue light in them again, "I have no use for a weak servant."

_…You do not fight for enjoyment, you fight for purpose…_

Gluttony let out a cry of despair, while Sloth paled visibly as their fellow Sin shrieked. Her mind was crushed and her body was reduced to basic components in a show of lights. She dissolved into nothing in a matter of minutes, but the echoes of her cries were engraved into their minds.

"Go back to your duties!" Dante snapped irritably, giving them a cold glare, "And do not _dare_ to fail me again."

Sloth gently lead the sobbing Gluttony away, while Envy stood there for a longer moment, his eyes trying to bore a hole into Dante. After a long silence, the old woman raised a mocking eyebrow at him, and he turned to leave, his stomach twisting in disgust.

_This means war._

* * *

_(A/N) **Review? **_


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